Thursday, August 28, 2008

You might think that it would be neat to have a best friend who's writing a cookbook, and I suppose that it would be if you happened to live in the same town—or even in the same state—as she does. But I can tell you from my own misfortune personal experience that having a best friend who is writing a cookbook and lives on the other side of the country is absolutely no fun at all.

Not only does she no longer have time to goof off on the phone have serious discussions about life, the universe, and everything with you because she's perpetually frazzled and frantically scrambling to make yet another deadline, but you can't even go over to her house and help devour the plates and platters of scrumptious food she cooks up every day in the name of work.

And then there was the message she left on my answering machine one day saying, "I have buttercream frosting all over my hands and you don't!"

If your evil pal best friend also happens to be a computer genius and is therefore your own personal tech support, things are even worse.

Even I, computer challenged as I am, know that the new RAM she advised me to buy several months ago (which is now so old it's probably obsolete—or at least available at one-tenth of the price) would probably do a lot more good if it were actually in my computer rather than sitting on top of it.

Besides having to starve not being able to indulge in all of her homemade gourmet goodness, I must also face the sad and frustrating truth that there isn't really any way to pitch in and get this annoying project finished already help her out because I'm a couple of thousand miles away.

Even when she has a frightening run-in with a wasp, to which she is deathly allergic, and ends up spraying a counter full of food (and several hours worth of work) with toxic bug spray, all I can do is feebly try to console her over the phone.

Once in a while, though, there does come an opportunity to save the day lend a long-distance helping hand, like when she calls and says she needs a few step-by-step photos of mixing up some ground lamb for her lamb burger recipe, and her market is totally lambless.

No problem! you assure her as you head out to the covered porch off the kitchen, lift up the lid of one of your giant, ancient, jam packed chest freezers and pluck out a package of grass-fed ground lamb that you just happened to have raised yourself.

And because helping your best friend out of a bind is of course its own reward, having to cook up and consume some lamb burgers that evening for dinner (since you've already gone to the trouble of mixing up the meat—and thankfully haven't had to douse it with bug spray) is just icing on the proverbial cake, especially if she happened to have told you once that lamb burgers on homemade rosemary focaccia 'buns' are delicious.

So I guess having a best friend who's writing a cookbook isn't all bad. Now if only she would call and say she desperately needs a picture of some deep, dark chocolate cake batter—and buttercream frosting of course.

After taking the required photos for Beth, I decided to apply my More, More, More philosophy to her original recipe and mixed some chopped fresh parsley and rosemary from the greenhouse into the meat. Oh, and I also added more shallots and garlic than she told me to, but hopefully she won't be able to tell in the photos.

As always, I urge you to seek out local and ingredients whenever possible; they really do make a difference. All natural, grass-fed lamb raised by small producers like us is becoming more and more readily available around the U.S., so there's no need to buy frozen lamb that has traveled halfway across the world. Search Local Harvest to find lamb and other food grown close to home.

Place the ground lamb, feta cheese, shallots, garlic, rosemary, and parsley in a bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then gently mix until combined—the best way to do this is with your clean hands. Form into 3 or 4 patties.

Place patties on a grill or in a hot skillet (cast iron works beautifully) and cook until brown, about 5 minutes. Flip burgers and cook until desired doneness. Serve between slices of focaccia or your favorite bread or buns.

So here's the deal. Because unscrupulous people are constantly stealing and republishing the contents of my blog on other websites and claiming it as their own (usually to make money from advertising without having to actually write anything themselves), last year I began adding a copyright notice at the bottom of each blog post to help stop them, and to prove the content is indeed mine. Using the same wording every time makes it easier for me to track things using google alerts.

But after a while I got bored typing the same notice over and over, so for kicks I started changing it. Some of you realized this right away and let me know you enjoyed the little bits of farm news I'd share — kind of like my own personal Twitter. I simply kept the first line the same, and it never crossed my mind that this meant I was bombarding you with the fact that Farmgirl Fare has won some awards — probably because I was too busy coming up with something new and amusing to say.

Or, as my ever-so-subtle best pal and staunch supporter Beth put it, "It's a *bleeping* copyright notice that is original every day! Shut the *bleep* up if you don't like the lede - or start reading on the second line."

But just in case it's been bothering you, too (after that comment I started wondering if it had been getting on everybody's nerves), I'm going to stop saying 'award-winning.' It's no big deal to me, but I did want to explain it all to you. And this just might be the longest copyright notice ever written.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Back in May I created an easy orange yogurt loaf cake specifically to enjoy with the beautiful ripe strawberries that were in my kitchen garden. I quickly became addicted to both the cake and the combination, but what I didn't realize at the time was that this cake was actually made for blueberries. Oh yes. Oh yum.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Apparently the only thing it takes me longer to get around to doing on this blog besides announcing a book giveaway contest is announcing the winners of the contest (which, in this case, I randomly picked ages ago). So finally, congratulations to Barb and Tina F! You've each won a hardcover copy of Comfort Food and a handy dandy canvas totebag adorned with the beautiful book cover artwork.

In her entry comment Tina wrote: My favorite comfort food would probably be pasta. Clam spaghetti like my husband makes it or pasta carbonara. With a nice rich ice cream for dessert! And Barb said: Just reading the comments made me think, Yeah! That could be a favorite comfort food for me, too!, but I think my hands-down favorite comfort food would have to be a slice (only one???) of freshly-baked, homemade bread. Is there anything on earth better than that? Ladies, if you'll email me your mailing addresses (farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com) I'll send you your prizes.

This was definitely the most entertaining contest I've held so far. Nearly 250 of you took the time to tell us about your favorite comfort foods, and some of you even shared recipes (thank you!). During the contest my mother sent me an e-mail message with the subject line of 209 comments!!!! and then wrote: Did a lot of people just want to talk about comfort food or really want to win the book?

I jokingly replied that it must be the totebag, but I do think she was onto something. I know that I never get tired of talking about comfort food.

As I mentioned before, I really enjoyed this book. And the audio version read by the amazing Barbaba Rosenblat is absolutely wonderful. While I was in the middle of listening to it I learned that Kate Jacobs' first novel, The Friday Night Knitting Club, is being made into a movie starring and produced by Julia Roberts, and I immediately realized what a fantastic movie Comfort Food could be. With the right cast and screenplay, I think it even has the potential to surpass my current favorite food movie (and one of my all time favorite films), Mostly Martha. Hopefully I'll have a chance to find out.

Many thanks to all of you who took part in the contest. I have several more fun foodie book giveaways planned so stay tuned. I'm sure I'll get around to announcing them one of these days. And my apologies to those of you in other countries who aren't able to participate in the contests, but I checked on some international postage rates and unfortunately it often costs more to mail the books than the books themselves cost!